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Candice Brown Elliott / “sillyolme”: archival material

This page supplements the profile of Candice Brown Elliott with selected archival material of note.

TransSisters

Elliott was a contributor to TransSisters: The Journal of Transsexual Feminism. The following appeared in their publication in Spring 1995.

Heras

by Candice Hellen Brown

We need our historic heros. They shine as examples of courage and hope. Without them we give in to confusion and despair. I have modem heroes as well. You may have heard some of these names, but it’s unlikely that you’ve heard of most of them. That’s too bad, since these are fine, brave people. 1 would like to share them with you.

Feminism teaches us that “the personal is political.” I feel that “the political is personal” as well. For me to tell you about my transsexual heroes I must tell you about much of my own life. But this will not really be about me, but about the people I met in my life and the real stories that you may have already heard told in “the other side” of the gay press. The gay & lesbian community was (and in many parts of the country still is) not comfortable with the presence of transsexual men and women. It was the bravery of transsexuals who faced personal and political censure from both the straight and gay & lesbian communities who remain my heroes.

I was in high-school, in the early 1970s when I began a quest to understand the gay culture and my place in it. During my last year of school I read of the participation of a transsexual as a delegate in the 1968 Democratic Party National Convention and then of her later being in the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969. Her name was Angela Keys Douglas. I also read about the most famous of all transsexuals, Christine Jorgensen. How could I not come out as transsexual with their examples? If I wanted to keep any of my friends I had to come out soon since I would be eighteen a week before graduation and free to transition.

I first had to get into a “gender dysphoria clinic.” Following a series of horrible scenes with my family, I tricked them into getting me into one at seventeen. They thought the place was going to “cure” me! The Stanford Gender Dysphoria Clinic’s power and mind-tripping was terrible. I wanted to meet other transsexuals just so I could have a real mentor, someone to hold my hand. Much of the clinic staff could not have cared less. “Bring money” and “conform to the style” were the only messages they wanted to have understood.

I came out to my friends at school slowly, first to my girlfriend. She was very supportive at first, but later tried to convert me to Christianity and to make me “stop sinning. ” Other friends who I thought would be very cool about it were just the opposite. One of the worst later came out as a gay man. No hero there! There were also a few whom I had not given much thought to while in school. Later these would become my truest friends to this day. So much for my instincts.

I never even spoke with the first transsexual whom I actually met. I found out that he was also a transsexual at our graduation ceremony. I had been threatened with dire consequences by my family if I walked in the graduation procession as a woman. I did not risk it. But Mark did. He was in the boys’ line and even had his new, masculine, name read out as he received his diploma. He caused quite the stir with the dean, almost even came to blows. I had seen him almost every school day for years and did not know that behind the quiet, shy mask of the schoolgirl was a very brave man. My hero!

Mark must have also gone to the same clinic. They could have told us there was someone else our own age, right in the same school! “No, no, can’t have that We want those PATIENTS to have nothing to do with each other. ”

I transitioned full time just after graduation. I was going to Community College near Santa Cruz with a tiny remittance from my mother, providing I never showed my face in my hometown. I got kicked out of my first room but found a place in a lesbian household. Only one of the other women knew about me. She was as butch as they come and proud of it. She would be called a transgenderist today, even lived as a man for a few years. It was there that I met a man, a friend of one of my housemates helping her move in, who had been at the ^68 convention. I asked him if he had met Angela Keys Douglas. Oh yes, he had indeed! And surprise, he knew her still. She now lived in Berkeley, California. I resolved that I would meet her someday.

I had already been living full time as a woman for six months when I was invited to a symposium at the clinic. There would be other transsexuals there! I did not have the money for the bus fare. But my father lived just under a mile from the clinic. I talked him into picking me up for a visit

While my father was out I changed into peach colored corduroy slacks and a nice blouse, no sense in giving the wrong impression to the clinic staff! I walked to the clinic that day with all sorts of daydreams. What would the others be like? Could they help me? I was totally unprepared for the reality. First, there were no female -to- males present, just male-to-females, most of whom were much older than I was. Second, most of them were obvious and not dressed appropriately. They were all dressed ultrafemme, as if this were some formal occasion! And worst of all, this was expected by the clinic staff! But there were a small number who were dressed as I was, casually, just “plain folks.” It became apparent only later that these were postops who no longer had to bow down to the pressure from the doctors to conform to the ’50s image of housewife, secretary, or whore. One of these was to become a true hero. Her name is Sandy Stone. She was tall, with long black hair, turning gray. I was attracted to her as my idealized image of a quietly self-confident, friendly, humorous, gentle, strong woman. I wanted and still want to be like her.

Within a week of that awful symposium (should I say brainwashing session?) I was to meet another hero. Christine Jorgensen was to speak at a community college in Monterey. Along with some of the other transsexuals I had just met, I went to hear her. While she was speaking one of us whispered to the rest of us, “Isn’t she beautiful? She’s just an ordinary looking middle aged woman!”. It was true. She was very ordinary looking, and she was beautiful. It was her spirit, her warmth, her humor, that made her beautiful. I could not help but admire her. If I could just live that contentedly, be that strong. I have kept the ticket stub from that night, February 7, 1976, ever since.

I lived through another six months of uncertainty and poverty’, but at least I was getting advice and friendship from other transsexuals. I had many telephone conversations with Sandy Stone. She had been a recording engineer before transition. Of course misogyny kept her from getting work as a woman. I was very interested in electronics, music and video, so we got along. One day she called very exited, saying “I got a job with Olivia Records!” This was great news; she was again a recording engineer. But better yet it was recording Women’s Music, which in the late 70s was coming on strong with a powerful feminist and lesbian message. The bad news was that the job was in L.A.

I would miss her.

In the summer of 77 I wrote to Angela Keys Douglas. She wrote back inviting me to visit during the weekend of the Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco.

When I arrived at her apartment the day before the parade I found that she was in a regal temper. She went on for half an hour about how pig-headed the women at KPFA were and how ugly the stuff in the lesbian journal Sister was. It turned out that a controversy over a transsexual was raging in the lesbian community. Women were calling for the resignation or firing of this transsexual from her job. Her co-workers were defending her. “What job?” I asked. “Her job as a recording engineer at some all women’s record company!” “Oh, shit! You don’t mean Sandy Stone do you?” “Yes that’s the one.” My heart sank. Angela kept on raving.

Later her voice was replaced by the tapping of a beat-up typewriter. I peeked over her shoulder while she wrote a letter to Sister. It was filled with irony, hyperbole, and dripped with ugly sarcasm. She asked what I thought of it. I told her I thought it was too filled with anger to be useful. She changed nothing, put it in an envelope, addressed and stamped it without a word.

The next morning we drove over the bay to the city. I asked, “Where are we going to watch the parade?” She replied, “We aren’t going to watch. We’re going to join it.” “Which group?” “I don’t know. We’ll find one.” And we did! The Matachine Society invited us to join them on a jeep. It was then that a manin semi-drag “gender-bender” style came up to me passing out handouts. It was a protest against the parade committee’s decision to keep drag queens, transvestites, and transsexuals out of the parade. Damned if I was going to go aw’ay; I was ecstatic, surrounded by the cheers of gay men and women, especially the women.

In early 1978 I got kicked out of the apartment that I lived in for a year and a half when the manager found out that I was transsexual. I had heard good things were going on in the transsexual community in L.A. and decided that it was time to move on. I got a call from Sandy Stone, “Hey, guess what? Olivia Records is moving to Berkeley!” “Hey, guess what? I’m moving to L.A.!” I was thrilled that she was still at Olivia. The brave and just women who worked with her stood by her. But I was still going to miss her.

Things were still unsettled for me after moving to L.A. Several jobs, roommates and living situations later, during the summer of 79, I met a transsexual who would become my best friend, point of stability, and sister, Joy Diane Shaffer. She and I became politically active, joined the “Transsexual Rights Committee of the A.C.L.U. Gay Rights Task Force”. It was chaired by a very eccentric transsexual woman named Joanna M. Clark. (She later changed her name to Sister Mary Elizabeth.) We sued the army for dishonorably discharging transsexual soldiers, won the battle, still fighting the war. We convinced the State of California to change some of its bureaucratic procedures that hurt transsexuals. We wrote legislation to demand insurance companies to pay for reconstructive surgeries for transsexuals. (The total cost would be two cents per policy. Today insurance has exclusions for it and most transsexuals pay $10,000+ in cash!)

In 1979 a book called The Transsexual Empire: the Making of the She-Male by the feminist author and colleague of Mary Daly, Janice G. Raymond, was published. Raymond used the wrong pronouns constantly and called transsexuals “female-to-constructed males” and “male-to-constructed-females.” She accused transsexuals, especially male-to-female transsexuals, of being tools of the patriarchy and the enemies of feminism. She accurately described the abuse of power that the so called “gender clinics” used to enforce stereotypical behavior and patriarchy but then blamed us, the victims of it. She then proposed an “ethic of integrity” that declared by fiat that transsexuals should not exist But the biggest hurt of all was to read about the events surrounding Sandy Stone. She even quoted, completely out of context, the worst part of Angela’s painful letter. It was not even mentioned that it was written as a response to the ugly letter demanding Sandy’s dismissal. I know these people. It didn’t happen that way. I was there!

Joy Shaffer and I joined a transsexual self-help group that met in the basement of the downtown L.A./M.C.C. For transsexuals to be running their own show was radical. It meant taking back our power. The group was called just that: “The Group”. The Group was all ages, status, and directions. We helped each other find jobs, housing, and human company who didn’t think of us as daytime talk show freaks. We also took part in the larger gay & lesbian community.

The Group was started by a deceptively quiet woman named Carol Katz. I had read about her years before when she was booted out of the L.A.P.D. when she began transition. The Chief of Police even had choice words about her. (Such an honor!!) Carol also ran security for the Christopher Street West Fair & Parade for several years. She roped many from the Group into volunteering to work security.

When a “Women Take Back the Night” march w as organized it seemed natural that Carol Katz should be coordinator of security and traffic control, not to mention liaison to the L.A. P.D. But ugliness showed up for Carol in the same form that it had for Sandy. Carol could take the hatred of the L.A.P.D. but not from her own community. She withdrew from the coordinating job. When Joy and I got to the march we found Carol frantically yelling into a walkie-talkie. “What’s going on here?” “They changed their minds two hours ago. Things are a mess! I’m sorry, gotta run!” My hera!

Fast forward to 1986. I had finished my undergraduate degree and had a good career as an engineer in Silicon Valley. Joy had finished medical school and was in residency. She had been outed the first year of school and took a lot of snubbing and personal attacks.

1 ran into Sandy Stone again that year at a national level Wiccan gathering. Merry Meet. She was more beautiful than ever, her long black hair streaked with gray. The first day of the gathering was a leadership training class. During one of the sessions Sandy and I were sitting next to each other when she leaned over to whisper, “Do you realize how many there are of us here?” I had already noticed it. Of the thirty in this session there were eight transsexuals. One of the women organizing the leadership training was one of them. There were twelve transsexuals out of 300 total.

The first evening of the gathering Sandy and I were eating dinner when she fell silent and stiff. “What’s wrong?” “Over there, the woman with the short gray hair.” “1 know her, that’s Z. Budapest, been circling with her for the past several years.” ” You’ve been circling with HER? She was one of the ones who trashed me in 77! ! She kicked me out of the womens’ circle I was in.” That sinking feeling was there again. 1 noticed Z. blanch when she saw Sandy and me together. I knew that she did not know that I was transsexual. Why should I go stirring up trouble? But trouble was already here. I had to find a way to heal this situation that weekend.

I got my opportunity the next day. A group of gay people, including Sandy and 1, decided that we wanted a gay confirming ritual away from the rest of the gathering. I made sure that Z. was there. During the ritual she positioned herself away from Sandy and me. My heart was pounding and my hands shaking, anticipating what I was going to do and say. At one point during the ritual we were calling personalized blessings upon each other. 1 stood facing Sandy, looking her square in the face and said: “For too long you have been the lightning rod for hate against transsexuals. I take that away from you. I take your place.

I am a transsexual.” Sandy was crying. Z. was crying and broke circle to cross it. She hugged Sandy and me together.

It has been a fair number of years since these events but things aren’t too terribly different. Dr. Joy Shaffer is looking to start her own transsexual affirming medical practice and is working to save Dr. Melanie Erin Spritz’s medical career. . I have moved to Oregon where 1 live with my nontranssexual lesbian lover, Kier. We are co-moms of our eight year old daughter Elizabeth. Life is certainly an adventure living with heras all around. Blessed Be.

Addendum: What walks like a duck, talks like a duck, but is called a chicken?

I have been trying to answer that one for several years. The Right to Privacy PAC in Oregon has a big fundraiser every year that is called The Lucile Hart Memorial Dinner. When I am asked if I am going I indignantly answer, “Not until they stop using the wrong name and gender for one of our heroes! His name is Alan!!”

I first heard of Dr. Alan L. Hart several years ago. He was bom in 1890 with female genitalia and raised, unhappily, as a girl. But upon reaching mature, educated adulthood he took steps, including surgery, to live his life as a man, even marrying twice. He made a slow transition while going to medical school then started a practice in Reedsport, Oregon in 1917. He was outed a few months later by a medical school coileage and was forced to move to Albany, Oregon. He later continued his career as a physician. He never wavered from his identity as a man and upon his death his widow also continued to insist that he was a man. Why would such a straight man be called a lesbian by the gay community when today we would certainly call him a female-torn ale transsexual?

Is it because he did not call himself that? How could he? The term was not coined until 1949!! He was lumped in with all of the “deviants” and called an “invert.” He had “the identity that dared not know its name.” Historic labels aside we should not misidentify him today. He was a transsexual, a true pioneer. One who must be seen as a hero by today’s transsexual community.

Alan Hart is one of our heroes. Please don’t let him be taken away from us by allowing his old name to be used as though it were a badge of honor. At best it is unthinking, and at worst, insulting. My, how it rankles me to hear folks today using the wrong pronoun and name. Yes, his parents may have named him Alberta Lucille Hart, but he named himself Alan! QUACK!

Candice Hellen Brown has written a number of articles under the name of Glowing SunBear for various Pagan publications, including Green Egg, Goddess Rising, The Almalthean Horn, Open Ways end Reclaiming Newsletter. She has also recorded one cassette tape entitled After Light. She and her lover Kier are presently in the process of adopting an eight year old girl from the state of Oregon. She is a resident of Portland, Oregon.

Source: Brown, Candice Hellen (1995). Heras. TransSisters: A Journal of Transsexual Feminism, Issue 8 (Spring 1995), pp. 49-51. Available at https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/5138jd92m

Trans History

Elliott maintained a website on trans history from 1999 to around 2006. Below are the planned entries, with links to the written pieces.

TransHistory.org (transhistory.org) [archive]

TransHistory

Organizations

Individuals

Physicians and Researchers:

Friends of the Community:

Enemies of the Community:

Acknowledgements

  • Joy D. Shaffer, M.D.
  • Jeffrey K. Elliott
  • David King, Ph.D.
  • Jessica Xavier
  • Jameson Green
  • Sister Mary Elizabeth
  • Ken Morris
  • Carol Katz
  • Claudia Wrede
  • Anna K. Kristjansdottir
  • Phyllis Frye
  • Sally Anne Ofner
  • Gwen Smith
  • Angus Campbell
  • Susan Stryker, Ph.D.
  • Holly Devor, Ph.D.
  • Anne Ogborn
  • Jude Patton

TransHistory.net (transhistory.net) [archive]

Resources